Dog Aggression towards my son

[teridaniels]

We have a tea cup yorkie, we adopted him a year ago he is 18 months old, Everything has been fine up until about 3 months ago. He is a very small loving dog excpet towards my son and now visitors. Basically if anyone walks in the room besides myself, my husband or my daughter he gets very aggressive barking growling and biting at their ankles. We have tried scolding him, we have tried comforting him. My son will pick him up while he is aggressivly barking at him and try to make firends with him nothing works. We dont know what was the reason for the change in behavior but it seems to be getting worse daily, my son, his friends and our adult friends are all being attacked by this little three pound yorkie everytime they walk into the same room as him. What can we do to stop this behavior?

[uberglamorous]

Hi teridaniels!

It's obvious that he has issues related to dominance and aggression. The first problem is that your dog is overprotective of you, his master, and that means he'll treat any person other than yourself as a threat.

Some dogs are just prone to being overly possessive with the people and things that he holds dear, such as you and what he perceives to be his turf.

The other issue is that he fails to realize his place in the "pack" and displays alpha-like behavior such as aggression.

Proper obedience training and adequate socialization are best ways for your pet to unlearn the behavior that has set in.

Thus, you should inquire with any local obedience schools to facilitate the necessary instruction to gradually make him a well-adjusted dog.

You can also look up resources (either through reputable websites or physical books) which will give you additional information on asserting yourself as the "alpha dog".

The other part of the solution is by exposing him to other people and dogs to make him less xenophobic. For instance, you could schedule daily walks and set play dates with fellow owners.

Now, I realize that given your dog's current disposition, it may be difficult to do that, but again there are resources which you can tap into. There is a lot of information on how to properly walk your dog and supervise interactions with other animals.

As a side note however, you may want to check with a vet just to rule out any sickness or condition that may be contributing to his cranky behavior. It is possible that he may have developed an illness of some sort if the change in his attitude is sudden.

I hope that this information helps and has pointed you in the right direction.

[uberglamorous]

I also want to send you this link:

http://dogobedienceadvice.com/dog-obedience-training/

This contains a review of dog training manuals that really helped me before. You might want to check it out.

Cheers!

[teridaniels]

Thank you. We are looking into an obedience in home trainer in our area. We hope we can help him become a happy dog again.